Has anyone tried those ledge shelves for storing/displaying picture books in the nursery? I see this all over Pinterest, but I'm not sure how well it would work out in real life...would it get messy looking quickly?
I'd like to find a nice way to store books so Little Miss can access them easily. We'll probably my go with a low bookshelf, but those ledges look so nice!
eggplant / 11716 posts
@kpc324: we have the picture ledges for books and they are really more for decor than storage. They will hold far less than an actual bookshelf, and ours is overflowing now and of course as she gets older, we'll need an actual book shelf.
But I think it's cute in terms of decor! and Cheap, too.
grapefruit / 4110 posts
I was going to get the ikea spice racks to do that. But we haven't made it to ikea yet.
honeydew / 7283 posts
We have the ledges (ikea, I think?) and I love them. Ours are really big and we filled them with books that my mom kept from my childhood and have added to them with new books. They take up a whole wall and look great, which is perfect because I'm not great with decorating. M loves to be picked up so that she can choose her bedtime book since all the covers are visible - or she can get her own books from the bottom shelves.
pear / 1642 posts
We have those ledges in LOs nursery, and really like them. She has way too many books to fit on them nicely, so I store the overflow on the top shelf of her closet and keep the books that we read on a regular basis on the ledges (which are low so she can reach them). As she grows out of the board books that are in the shelf now, Ill pull down the older books out of the closet and replace them on the ledges.
grapefruit / 4085 posts
We have a few - I use them to change up the book displays. The rest are stored in the bookshelf.
pomelo / 5326 posts
We use the ones from IKEA too. She certainly has more books than will fit on them, but I just rotate books once in awhile. Right now there are 14 books on display and we have three shelves. I love the look of them and I think they're practical for our nursery because they're right beside the couch where we read.
blogger / nectarine / 2608 posts
I'll have to take pictures in the morning, but we had a friend make us a bookshelf with some front-facing storage. It has worked wonderfully. And it is an insert that can come out when she gets older and needs more places for books and doesn't need the visual selection quite as much anymore. We typically put current favorites and newer library books front facing, but change out the "display" regularly based on her interests. Sometimes it's slightly themed. I've never liked the ones that mount to the wall, personally; although you can use gutter sections from the hardware store to make some inexpensive but still very attractive ones if you like that style of display/storage.
pomelo / 5628 posts
I have three just like the picture. LO is still little so I have the paper books on the shelves and the board books primarily on a low shelf near our chair. When he's reading all of tr books I imagine I'll just rotate every month or so. It looks really nice and I love it.
bananas / 9118 posts
We have one Ikea ledge for favorite books that I switch out occasionally and a bookcase for the rest. We also keep a basket in the living room and rotate some books there too since we spend most of our time there.
nectarine / 2220 posts
I used the Ribba ledge. It has a mix of books and decor items. The bulk of her books are stored on our bookshelf in the living room though. My thought it just to put the pretty ones, and then her board books on the lowest shelf so she can reach them herself eventually.
grapefruit / 4584 posts
Have any of you had trouble with your toddler pulling on these shelves? My (tiny!) 18 month old ripped an IKEA "LACK" shelf off the wall and now my husband refuses to hang spice rack bookshelves. I think if she could reach them she wouldn't pull on them, but who knows....
grapefruit / 4079 posts
@Sapphiresun: I have been drooling over those pbkids floral prints for years. Then we got pregnant with our LO who is a boy so I had to let them go but they look amazing in your lo's room!
pomelo / 5326 posts
@kpc324: here are a couple pictures I saved before we did our nursery if you want other ideas. I'm not sure if I saw these here or Pinterest. The bottom one was made out of building materials, rain gutters I think!
ETA If you see these and these are your nursery, love it!
cantaloupe / 6885 posts
We have them...we used this tutorial (http://ana-white.com/2010/10/plans/ten-dollar-ledges) and they turned out really nice! I love that it's the first thing you see in her room when looking down the hallway.
blogger / pomegranate / 3044 posts
These are awesome, I've been thinking about doing this as well!
eggplant / 11716 posts
@PinkElephant: Good point.
We were worried about that very thing, because in a kid's eyes these ledges are perfect climbing toys, right? I actually think if these are low enough (and go high enough) they can be really dangerous to a toddler who likes to climb.
Our solution was to only do three long but low shelves--all reachable for a toddler. Then we used heavy duty anchor bolts (also called a molly) that hold up to 25 lbs and screwed them directly into our steel beems (we're in a steel beem building and my husband has a drill bit for steel).
I'm not sure if most people take those precautions, but I'm paranoid.
grapefruit / 4923 posts
oh wow, you guys have some really nice bookshelves/ledges!
we had ours on a regular bookshelf, and then LO discovered that he loved pushing them all off the shelf. i have given up so there is just a mess of books on the floor a few inches away from his bookshelf. maybe when he is older we will look into a nicer display again.
so in our house, the answer is yes it got messy very quickly!
nectarine / 2631 posts
I just have a regular bookshelf low to the floor- he pulls the books out and plays with them (eats them) It does get messy fast though!
nectarine / 2220 posts
@ladybee: Thanks! That's not their intended home, but I love them too. I ordered them online thinking they'd go in a set of three over the crib because I thought "great, non glass!", but silly me didn't realize how heavy solid pine actually is either. But they definitely need to get anchored somewhere solid before LO starts getting mobile.
pomegranate / 3272 posts
Originally, I was thinking of doing a few ring slings like the ones in this link for the nursery:
http://pennycarnival.typepad.com/penny_carnival/2009/02/tutorial-hanging-book-display.html
However, now that I've see more and more of the book ledges like above, I was going to switch to that. Silly me hadn't even thought about toddlers wanting to climb them.
honeydew / 7916 posts
@brownie: We got the spice racks and are thinking about painting them a bright color. But I have to warn you, they're not very wide!
blogger / nectarine / 2608 posts
There's ours. The forward facing display is removable, and very sturdy. It was designed by Mr. T (who is also an engineer), and Lorelei has never pulled it out. We really love it!
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